


Arcanum Majora

by keircatenation



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Ed has a temper (but we all knew that already) (and he's not the only one), Ensemble Cast, Multi, Time Travel, a lot of expansion of Amestrian history and culture Because I Can, a lot of expansion of Ishvalan culture Because I Can, an unholy mashup of FMA03 and FMAB and Original Stuff, history is Important (and not just because of the time travel), no really WELCOME TO WORLDBUILDING CENTRAL
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2018-12-26 06:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12053127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keircatenation/pseuds/keircatenation
Summary: May, 1914.The general in charge of West Command is found dead in his bedroom just days after returning from a six-month-long audit of his questionable command decisions. The Silver Alchemist's body is found in the Rheos River, the fifth victim of a serial killer targeting State Alchemists.  Roy Mustang introduces the Elric Brothers to an ex-State Alchemist who refused to participate in the Ishvalan Extermination.These three events are not exactly unrelated.Or: in which there's a lot of espionage, Amestrian perceptions of Ishvalans are proven wrong more often than not, and history is surprisingly relevant when dismantling a government conspiracy centuries in the making.





	1. The Deserving and the Deserved

**Author's Note:**

> This is officially a FMA:B AU, but it takes things from FMA 03 and integrates them at will along with my own worldbuilding decisions. It kind of started out as For Want of a Nail, but quickly escalated into a full-on Alternate Universe, because I apparently can't do anything half-way when it comes to extrapolated (and otherwise) worldbuilding. I wanted to expand on Ishvalan culture, and, although this AU doesn't really contradict FMA canon (as long as you have the view that canon presents an Amestrian perspective that's ignorant of basically all Ishvalan culture, which I do), there's a lot of Differences.
> 
> Pairings will be added as they show up in the fic. Chapter updates might be sporadic, but will obviously each be pretty long. XD Shout out to [komiv](http://archiveofourown.org/users/komiv) for reading all my drafts.
> 
> This is my first fic foray into the FMA fandom, but I've been lurking for a while while working on building up this fic. I've especially been influenced by aventria and iluxia's _Catalysis_ (my map of Amestris is based off their map), Batsutousai's _Reverti Ad Praeteritum_ , mfelixandy's _Estvarya_ , Skinner's _Button Up Your Overcoat_ , and amarielah's musings on how alchemy is magic studied scientifically. My Ishvalan worldbuilding is completely different from ShanaStoryteller's by now, but her Ishvallan AU fics were one of the things that got me interested in creating original Ishvalan characters.

_Welcome to the 19th International Alchemical Conference!_

_May 11-15, 1914_

_Each year, the organizers of this conference among the staff of the AIA pick a topic around which to arrange the papers and demonstrations. In light of last year’s theme (_ Breaking Boundaries _, which inspired many innovative, impressive, and sometimes controversial presentations), the organizers chose for this year the theme of_ Tradition _. Presentations this year span from examinations of historical alchemists to reinventions of ancient alchemical techniques. The study and practice of alchemy has a long and varied history across the world, and it is important to celebrate it._

* * *

It’s funny, but, despite all the times they’d visited Central City, Ed and Al had never actually been inside the Amestrian Institute of Alchemy.

It was pretty impossible to avoid the building, since First Library was located on the First Insel as well, facing the AIA across a large granite plaza, but the Elric brothers had never seen the need to ever actually _enter_ the building. At least, Ed never had, and Al never brought up actually _visiting_ one of the boring academics he liked. Okay, sure, there were some academics who published interesting work, but Ed had once stumbled upon an eight-paper-deep argument over the (mis)use of the term _alkimia_ for _all_ ancient alchemical systems, not just Atossan ones, and Ed nearly threw the collection of papers out the window before Al rescued it from him.

So, yeah. Ed had never seen the need to get any closer to academia than he had to as a State Alchemist. The only reason he was here _now_ was because his superior, Colonel Roy Mustang, offered to introduce him and Al to some alchemist who could help them find the Philosopher’s Stone.

Today, the large, white stone building of the AIA was draped with green banners with the white Amestrian dragon on them. Ed thought it was a little overbearing; twin snarling dragons already flanked the wide steps that led up to the entrance (which also had _Amestrian Institute of Alchemy_ inscribed in the marble over the doors). Even if someone was stupid enough to not realize that they were in Central City, those dragons and the name were enough to let people know this was Amestris, no flags or banners needed.

Watching the green banners wave gently in the wind, Ed already felt like this was going to be more trouble than it would be worth. Even if one of these academics could help him get Al’s body back, who knew what they would demand in exchange.

“Oh no,” Al said suddenly, and Ed glanced over. His brother was looking at the schedule for the conference thing going on, bent over the paper booklet. He turned his head to look mournfully at Ed, helmet scraping against the raised throat guard of the armor. “Brother, there was a panel discussion led by Liselotte de Prie yesterday. I can’t believe we missed it!”

“Eh?” Ed snatched the program away. “Isn’t that one of your alchemy crushes?” Al had a few alchemists whose work he liked to follow, even if their work was useless for their ultimate goals. Ed scanned the spread Al had been looking at, and sure enough, there was de Prie’s name alongside four others, with a description of their panel. Something about comparing alchemical mythology cross-culturally. _Academia_. Where were the practical applications of _that_?

“Oh, she’s great, don’t you remember her paper on the implications of historical descriptions of the Philosopher’s Stone?” Al asked.

“Uh,” Ed said. He remembered reading something about that - which had just sent them down another dead end - but he didn’t really pay attention to academics’ names, unless they wrote really important things, like Thomas Behmen and the _Gold Book_. “Sure, yeah.”

Al shook his head and took the program back. “Someday, after we get our bodies back, I’d like to take a class from her, I think,” he said, sounding a little wistful.

Ed clenched his right hand, glancing briefly down at it, even if the automail was covered by his white glove. “You’ll do it,” he said quietly. “Soon. And she’ll be so impressed by you. You’ll, I don’t know, co-publish a paper, or something.”

That got a laugh, at least. “Taking a class with her would be enough,” Al said. “Are you ready to go in, Brother? We shouldn’t keep Colonel Mustang waiting.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ed scoffed. His lazy superior kept people waiting as he procrastinated on paperwork often enough, he could do with a few people keeping _him_ waiting as well. He tapped his fist against Al’s armored shoulder. “Alright, let’s get this over with. Let’s see who Colonel Bastard wants us to meet.”

The green and white Amestrian state banners from outside were replaced by gold, white, and red banners hung inside announcing the name of the conference in the main hall of the institute. It was a circular rotunda, with a soaring dome overhead and a glass skylight at the top, which Ed thought was pretty impressive, considering the fact that the building looked like a bunch of rectangular prisms stacked on top of each other. The concept that the interior shape of an object differed from the external image was popular in some circles of alchemical theory; Ed wondered if this was intentional or just a style thing.

The brothers were a bit of an odd pair - a fifteen-year old boy with gold hair and eyes in a bright red jacket and a tall, barrel-chested suit of metal armor - but they didn’t get as many odd looks inside as Ed expected. Then again, Ed hadn’t expected there to be as many people there as there were. There were lots of groups of people - were they _all_ alchemists? - talking in clusters in the center of the rotunda, leaving the perimeter free for circulation. There weren’t many State Alchemists - or at least, not ones wearing military blues - and the majority of the attendees didn’t even sound Amestrian. As Ed and Al made their way around the room looking for Mustang, Ed overheard snatches of conversations in so many different languages: Amestrian, of course, and then Aerugonian, some Drachman, others that he didn’t recognize, and even something that sounded about like the Ishvalan that he’d heard in his early childhood.

It was a bit overwhelming, to be honest.

Eventually, Ed and Al stepped out of the flow of people into an unoccupied space near a door that seemed to lead into a hallway of classrooms rather than one of the large lecture halls or demonstration rooms used by the conference, since the hall was lined by closed doors.

“I don’t see the colonel at all, Brother,” Al said worriedly, head swiveling to keep searching.

Ed folded his arms across his chest and scowled. “Who knows if he’s even coming.”

“Brother!” Al exclaimed. “I don’t think he would ask you to meet him here if it wasn’t important.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure Colonel Bastard would tell me to come here just to waste my time,” Ed scoffed.

“Well, if you’d prefer, I could come back later, Fullmetal,” Mustang said from behind Ed. “I’d hate to fail to live up to such… _small_ expectations.”

Oh, he _didn’t_.

Ed spun around, snarling, “Who are you calling so short he couldn’t even see your lame ass over the heads of the crowd?”

Mustang just smirked a little, which made Ed even _angrier_. He opened his mouth to say something - he wasn’t sure what, except it would _definitely_ be insulting - when a woman said, “Why don’t we leave this for _after_ the introductions?”

Ed took a step back, startled that he hadn’t even seen the woman standing next to his lame ass superior officer. She was dressed in a calf-length skirt and a fitted blazer, with a coat held over one arm - a civilian, probably, although Mustang was out of his military uniform as well, now that Ed took a look at him. The woman was pale, with upturned green eyes and wavy blonde hair cut short into a casual bob. Ed had heard Winry complain about hair often enough over the years to guess that the _casual_ effect probably took more time in the morning than not.

“Of course,” Mustang said smoothly. He gestured at the woman, and continued, “Erics, this is Liselotte de Prie, a professor at Edgebridge University and a specialist in rare alchemical practices. Liselotte, this is Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, and his brother, Alphonse.”

“Oh wow, you’re _really_ Liselotte de Prie?” Al asked excitedly, the paper program he’d been reading earlier crumpling a little in his hands. “I’m a big fan of your work!”

“Thanks,” de Prie said with a small smile. “Are you Edward or Alphonse, then?”

“I’m Alphonse, or just call me Al.” Al raised a hand to the back of his helmet, a holdover gesture from when he was still human and had hair to ruffle.

De Prie glanced over at Ed and said, “So that makes you Edward.”

Ed shrugged. “Just Ed is fine.”

De Prie looked straight at Mustang then, expression flat and serious. If Ed didn’t know better, he’d say Mustang was _nervous_ , from the way his lips pressed together. “You know, Mustang,” de Prie said, “When you told me about the alchemist prodigy you recruited three years ago, I expected someone a little older.”

“Hey, I can take care of myself better than people _twice_ my age,” Ed said, maybe a little more aggressively than necessary, but he always hated when people underestimated him just because he was young. He wasn’t a _kid_ anymore, dammit.

Mustang grimaced for a moment before his expression smoothed out. “I’ll tell you all about it over supper tonight?” he asked charmingly, tucking his hands into his pockets.

De Prie crossed her arms and glared at Mustang, but after a moment she sighed and said, “Fine. We can meet on the steps after the last paper today.”

“Excellent,” Mustang said with a smirk.

Ed cleared his throat. Just in case Colonel Lazy Ass forgot he and Al were still there with all the attempted flirting going on.

“Right,” Mustang said, turning back towards Ed and Al a bit. “Liselotte, the Elrics are interested in the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“The Stone, hm?” de Prie said, raising a hand to her mouth. She looked over both Ed and Al, and Ed had to keep himself from shivering at the frank and chilly appraisal in her gaze. “What are you after, then – gold, or immortality? State Alchemists are paid well enough to not need the first, and you seem a little young for the second – although Al, your armor does hide a lot.”

Ed clenched his jaw, and said, “Neither. We did a stupid thing, and now we’re trying to set it right.”

De Prie raised her eyebrows, glancing at Mustang, but Colonel Bastard turned his face away a bit, appearing to follow the legs of a woman passing by. There was a moment where the four of them were all quiet, the sounds of the reset of the conference echoing around them.

“It’s… a bit hard to explain,” Al said finally. “We’ve been searching for a solution for a while now, and the Philosopher’s Stone is the only possibility we’ve found that can help us. We swear it’s not for any of the taboos.”

De Prie shook her head. “If that’s true, then there are other, easier ways of amplifying your alchemy.” She turned and waved a hand at Mustang. “He should know better than anyone, besides me.”

“Really?” Ed said incredulously. “Colonel _Flame_ here, knowing about alchemical _amplification_?”

Mustang heaved a dramatic sigh. “There was a time when I, too, had time to hare off around the country, learning about all kinds of alchemy. Why are you so surprised that I know something besides my specialty?”

“Because I’ve never seen you use anything except the fire arrays on your gloves,” Ed snapped defensively. He didn’t like the implication that he was _oblivious_.

De Prie snorted. “Well, I doubt his superiors care about anything _except_ the flame alchemy.” She bared her teeth a little in what might be considered a smile, then shook her head. “Mustang was my censor when I left the military – he’s familiar with my old work on alchemical amplification, at least.” She glanced at him. “Did you at least _start_ them there? I’d hate all my fine work to go to waste, locked up in First Library.”

Mustang started to say something – probably a stupid excuse, since Ed didn’t remember seeing any of this woman’s work except her published stuff – but Ed leaned forward and interrupted, “Wait a second, what do you mean, _censor_?”

“I mean, he was the State Alchemist assigned to look over my work after I was dishonorably discharged, to make sure I wasn’t using anything I developed while employed by the military,” de Prie said evenly.

“ _Dishonorably_ discharged?” Ed said at the same time that Al exclaimed, “That’s terrible!”

“What the fuck did you do to get _dishonorably_ discharged from _this_ military?” Ed demanded.

“I had more morals than they wanted me to have,” de Prie said drily. She paused, meeting Mustang’s eyes evenly, and then she said, deliberately, “I refused to participate in the Extermination.”

That term didn’t mean anything to Ed, but then Mustang clarified, “The Ishvalan Massacre.”

“Oh,” Ed said.

“So that’s why I couldn’t find any of your work before 1909,” Al said quietly. “A couple other alchemists I read mentioned working with you before then, but…”

“You can find all of that in First Library,” de Prie said, with a bitter smile. “Under my name in the alchemy section, I’d think.” She looked down and took a deep breath. When she looked up again, her smile was more genuine. “It was difficult at first, but at least I enjoy my research now. My partner helps quite a lot.”

“I didn’t know you had a research partner,” Al said. “Where is she published?”

“Not in any Amestrian journals,” Mustang said. When he saw Ed looking at him, he added, “Yes, Fullmetal, we’ve established that I _do_ keep up with current alchemical research. Although if you have such a – “

“If you make another short joke, I’m gonna feed you a fist, you asshole,” Ed snapped. He crossed his arms and turned towards de Prie. “Look, this is interesting, but can you help us with the Stone, or not?”

“Brother, don’t be _rude_ ,” Al hissed, jabbing an elbow into Ed’s side.

“Don’t worry, Al. I’ve heard worse from men more than twice his age,” de Prie said, but it was Ed that she looked at. “I’ve published everything I’ve written about the Philosopher’s Stone already.”

“We’ve read it,” Al hurried to say.

Ed just kept up his staring contest with de Prie.

De Prie broke first, glancing down and to the side before she looked at Al with a small smile. “Well,” she said, “If that’s the case, then I’m not certain what help I can be. All my research hints that the Stone can only be found through incredible sacrifice. I can only recommend that you look for another solution instead.”

“What about your partner?” Mustang asked quietly.

“What about her?” de Prie asked, but her smile sharpened.

“I saw her paper in _Alkimia International_ six months ago,” Mustang said. “Some of her theories seem to apply to the Elrics’ problem.”

De Prie’s eyes widened, and she said, “Oh,” a few times before she covered her mouth. She looked between Ed and Al a few times, eyes lingering on the red lights burning in Al’s eye holes. “Shit,” she said finally. “You’re not the older brother, are you, Al?”

Slowly, Al shook his head, the sound of metal scraping together just barely audible over the noise of the other people in the rotunda. “I’m still thirteen, but Brother is fifteen.”

“Why did you ask?” Ed asked warily. Whatever de Prie’s partner talked about in that paper, it obviously clued de Prie in on some part of their goal. From the way Mustang was talking around shit, it was probably the human transmutation thing – but then again, Colonel Asshole liked talking around people for no reason sometimes.

Instead of replying, de Prie looked down, and then nodded decisively. “I can’t promise that Adrienne will help you, but she will almost certainly hear you out,” de Prie said.

“So she’ll help us with the Philosopher’s Stone, if we talk to her?” Ed asked, feeling a burst of hope in his chest.

De Prie shrugged. “She has more practical experience in - many areas than I do.” She paused, and dug a small black leather-bound book from her pocket. She flipped through the pages, and then continued, “Adrienne’s travelling right now, but she will be headed back to East in three days. I can ask her to stop in Central on her way to meet with you two.”

Ed shared a look with Al. It wasn’t a definite – and de Prie was certainly being cagey on the subject of the Stone – but it was more than they’d had in a month. “Yeah, sounds good,” Ed said finally. “Al and I can get a hotel room to wait.”

Mustang shook his head. “Not after the expense bill of your last hotel came through,” he said. “You can stay with Maes Hughes, or another State Alchemist with the resources.”

Ed scrunched up his nose, thinking of Hughes shoving a pile of photos in his face every three minutes, and said, “ _Not_ with Hughes. Elicia’s cute, and Gracia’s great, but I can’t take the photos.”

“Brother, he’s not that bad,” Al protested, but Mustang nodded like he knew what Ed meant.

“I’ll find you a State Alchemist to stay with,” Mustang said.

“I know the Sewing Life Alchemist has a young daughter,” de Prie observed. “Children usually demand more space, there might be an extra room.”

“Your information network is impeccable, as always,” Mustang said. “I’ll check there first.”

De Prie nodded. “I’ll extend the stay at my hotel, and I’ll contact my partner.” She looked at Ed and Al. “I’ll send word when I hear back from her.”

Ed nodded, and grinned. For the first time since he joined the military, he felt a spark of hope that he and Al might be back in their own bodies soon.

* * *

_The wall of fire roared terribly high, and Annalise trembled with fear. She was determined to save her brother, but she had not thought of the challenges she might face. When the priest had told her to expect Death to jealously guard her brother’s soul, she had imagined bravely facing down a roaring lion, or some other such being that she could kill. To walk through the wall of fire – oh, she hoped it was a wall, with an end on the other side – might just kill her._

_But as Death had told her, she could not expect to recover her brother’s soul without coming away changed…_

– an excerpt from “Annalise the Bright,” a story translated into Amestrian by Maude Beauregard and included in the 1834 book _Historical Tales_ , published in East City

* * *

Despite everything Roy expected from Liselotte’s anger in the afternoon, supper was lovely, in a modest but well-run traditional Amestrian restaurant located in the South Bank. The neighborhood had been one of those destroyed in the August Rebellion sixty years ago; in the rebuilding efforts, the streets were widened and the buildings were standardized so all the rooftops were at the same height and the color schemes complimented each other. It was as picturesque as this city could get, with shrubs lining the sidewalks and a band of trees and more shrubs running down the middle to separate traffic: the perfect place for two out-of-town alchemists to catch up and enjoy an evening together before the Alchemical Conference ended.

They chatted about the papers presented over the past four days; Liselotte had a wide-ranging knowledge of alchemy, which meant she was able to give comprehensive overviews of the presentations that Roy wasn’t able to attend with his military duties. Roy mainly kept up with the alchemical community through journals these days, and it was a pleasant change of pace to discuss the subject in person.

Roy kept waiting for Liselotte’s pleasant humor to fade, and every moment that she continued smiling and making humorous remarks about her colleagues at Edgebridge University just heightened his anxiety. He was quite aware of Liselotte’s position on State Alchemists, the military, and the protection of children, and he _knew_ she didn’t approve of Fullmetal’s age.

It was the reason he had never told her in the first place that the prodigy he had found in Resembool wasn’t even old enough to enlist through the usual ways. (Roy was _certainly_ not going to tell her that an addendum to the enlistment regulations was written to ensure underage applicants could join the State Alchemist program, solely to combat protests that Edward Elric was too young to be in the military.)

A tiny part of Roy had hoped that Liselotte would have at least heard about how young the Elrics were by now, and that today’s introduction wouldn’t come as a surprise. It wouldn’t be impossible: Liselotte was based in East City with her partner, the Elrics travelled through there constantly while reporting to Roy, and Liselotte _loved_ collecting information. (It came from growing up in a household of intelligence agents, she’d told him once when they were younger.) Even if she hadn’t heard of them in East City, she still maintained relationships with current State Alchemists, and could have talked with some of the alchemists the Elrics had interacted with. She’d have heard about their age _quickly_ that way; Fullmetal was young, intelligent, and not about to humor anyone whose ideas he thought were stupid, which tended to encompass _most_ of the State Alchemists he’d met within Roy’s company, it turned out.

Then again, it was foolish to hope that Liselotte had found out about Edward and Alphonse and _hadn’t_ given him a piece of her mind about recruiting children.

Now she knew, and she _hadn’t brought it up yet_.

Maybe the anxious wait was part of the torture.

After finally meeting her father last year, Roy wouldn’t put it past her.

They finished dessert, and Roy charmingly swiped the bill to take care of it. Liselotte raised her eyebrows at his move, more suitable for a date than a meeting between old friends, but didn’t say anything. Roy tried not to sigh. The coming discussion was apparently going to be painful enough to have in complete private, rather than the privacy of a public restaurant. And he’d hoped he would get out of this relatively unscathed.

At least Liselotte was a lot less likely to punch people now than she was at age nineteen.

Then again, she’d usually only punched people back then when she was incandescently angry and couldn’t do something _worse_ to them, so that didn’t lend much comfort now.

The two left the restaurant, Liselotte’s hand in Roy’s elbow as they strolled along the city streets. They weren’t the only couples out and about: it was a Thursday night, but tomorrow was an unofficial holiday in Central as the day of the spring State Alchemist examinations. The practicals were held on the Old Parade Grounds and were open to spectators, drawing more and more onlookers each year. The Amestrian military propaganda machine had worked in overtime after the Ishvalan Massacre to brand Amestrian alchemists as heroes, and their abilities as brilliant fireworks, instead of as the living weapons the government actually treated them as.

Since Roy – the _Hero of Ishval_ – was the face of the campaign, he was more aware of it than most.

Liselotte guided him over the Essen Bridge, heading through the eastern corner of Lustgarten into the North Bank. Out here, the streets were smaller, the older buildings appearing taller as they trapped shadows in the streets despite the electric streetlights. The neighborhood was shabbier than the South Bank, but close enough to both Lustgarten and the river to be safe enough for other couples to be walking about as well.

They stopped outside a narrow, four-story building, Liselotte pulling Roy to a gentle halt. It was a hotel: _Grand Gran Inn_ , read the sign above the door in flourished calligraphy. A receptionist sat behind the desk inside; he glanced up from a flimsy paperback – from the cover illustration, it was a collection of comic strips from the popular newspaper serial _The People’s Alchemist_ – when they came in, and gave a little wave when he saw them. Liselotte nodded and smiled, but walked straight past to the stairs, not stopping to chat.

Liselotte stopped by a door on the third floor and unlocked it. She waited for Roy to enter, then shut the door behind her, locking it again.

The room was small but serviceable, with pleasant but faded wallpaper, a bed pushed against one wall, and two armchairs against another. The bed was neatly made, and a blouse, skirt, and jacket were thrown across the covers. Liselotte didn’t seem bothered by Roy seeing her clothes laid out so casually, so he resolved not to bring them up. A travelling suitcase lay closed on the floor next to the bedside table, obviously containing the rest of Liselotte’s clothes, and a slim book lay on the table itself. Roy doubted the walls were very thick, judging by the dull thumps and shuffling noises he could hear from the rooms next door, but it would be fine if they were both quiet.

Liselotte settled into one of the faded armchairs, and Roy took the other one, turning a bit to face her.

“Well,” he said, clasping his hands and resting them on his knee. “I’d like a chance to answer questions before you jump _straight_ to murdering me, if you would.”

It wasn’t a very good joke, but the corners of Liselotte’s mouth turned up slightly. “If I hadn’t done so five years ago, what makes you think I’d do so now?” she asked quietly.

Roy nodded, conceding the point. It was possible that he’d misjudged Liselotte’s anger; he always preferred to prepare for the worst, and found himself unable to stop even when it came to friends.

“So.” Liselotte threaded her fingers together in front of her chin. She looked down, instead of at Roy, and seemed more weary than angry. After a moment, she continued: “Those boys did human transmutation?”

Roy nodded. “When Edward was eleven, and Alphonse ten.”

“Shit.” Liselotte shook her head. “At least –“ She sighed.

“At least?” Roy prompted.

Liselotte opened her mouth to continue, but then paused and gave him a slow, sidelong glance, assessing him. “Have you really been reading Adrienne’s papers?”

Roy shrugged. “I try to, since she’s your partner, and her research is fascinating. I can’t always find copies – _Accounts of Alchemy_ is banned from entering the country right now.” He wasn’t certain what this line of questioning was about, but guessed that Liselotte was trying to judge whether Roy would arrest her partner for studying the human transmutation-like theories she discussed in her last paper in _Alkimia International_. For the sake of thoroughness, he added, “There are sometimes references to a journal called _Three Questions_ which contains her work, but I’ve never been able to a copy. A pity, since some of the references seemed just as pertinent to the Elrics’ situation as the paper in _Alkimia International_.”

“No, you wouldn’t be able to read it,” Liselotte said, shaking her head.

“Oh?”

Liselotte waved a hand. “The real name is _Vu'alaanina;_ it’s written in Estvarat.”

“In – sorry, _which_ language?”

“Estvarat. It’s the language spoken by the people we call Ishvalans.”

Roy leaned back in his chair. The Amestrian government didn’t recognize the Ishvalan cities – besides the three destroyed during the Massacre – but he knew there _were_ cities, if only because Liselotte talked about them sometimes. The official line said that the Ishvalans were an ethnoreligious tribe of Amestrians who tried to revolt against the government, throwing the East Area into chaos, and had to be put down with incredible force for the good of the country. The official line also said that they were all dead now and the cities destroyed – the “danger” passed – but anyone who spent enough time in the southeastern East Area could see that there were still Ishvalans, even if they were more nomadic than settled these days. The nomadism had led to some complaints in rural areas when Amestrians thought the nomadic Ishvalans would steal from them. As if there was any precedent there, outside of Bradley’s racist propaganda.

Come to think of it, Roy supposed that “Ishval” must have been a term assigned to the region by Amestrians, and might only be a step up from Bradley’s propaganda, even if the term _Ishvalan_ had been in the Amestrian language since the mid-sixteenth century. (He’d read up on Amestrian-Ishvalan history, once, in the wake of the Massacre. It didn’t make him feel better.)

“Adrienne is an Amestrian name,” Roy said finally. “Not…. Estvarat.”

Liselotte smirked at his stumble. “Yes, but Ismailu is an Estvar name.”

Roy gave her a dirty look. “To be honest, with that last name, I always thought she was from Zetian. How did she get an Amestrian first name, but a, uh, an Estvar last name? Is she mixed race?”

“No, she’s full Estvara,” Liselotte said, “Why would you ever think she’s Zetiani? They’re more isolationist than Amestris is expansionist.” She shook her head. “If you still want to know about her name by the time you meet her, you can ask her. Names are very personal to the Estvarat. They represent souls, so you don’t ask a person about _another_ person’s name.”

“Huh.”

“Growing up in the East, you’re probably more familiar with Estvar culture than you think you are,” Liselotte continued. “A lot of the things that distinguish East Area from the other parts of Amestris have to do with our proximity to the Estvarat. Cremation as a common funerary practice, the image of the desert as a mystical place, even some of the stories you hear as a kid. Did Aunt Chris ever tell you the story about Annalise the Bright, who outwitted death itself?”

Roy frowned. “That’s the story that’s a thinly-veiled metaphor for the seven stages of ancient alkimia, right? First she walks through fire, and then she swims an ocean, and so forth.”

“That’s the one,” Liselotte said, actually _grinning_. Genuinely. “It was first called _Atiyah Kaf-Mushree_ , or Atiyah Bright-Hand. The first written copy was recorded in the mid seventeenth century, in Estvarat. Several versions have been written down since, and one was translated into Amestrian in the early nineteenth century, when the borders of Amestris were first pressing up against Kulasal.”

“Kulasal being the land we call Ishval, then?” Roy clarified. He was still a little stunned that a story that _epitomized_ his childhood understanding of alchemy had been created by a people who hated everything that alchemy stood for.

Liselotte lifted a shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “Ishval really only refers to the three cities that we Amestrians destroyed. Kulasal is all nine of their cities together.” She waved a hand, going into academic mode. “ _Technically_ , Kulasal is every piece of earth that the Estvarat walk upon at any given time, but contemporary government officials have agreed upon more solid, fixed borders in reaction to Amestrian and Aerugonian attempts at colonialism. Some of which were obviously more successful than others.”

Roy paused, and then said, “You seem very… _aware_ of all this.” _More than I expected_ , he didn’t add.

“I’m not as much as I probably should be,” Liselotte said with a sigh. “Most of what I know is a combination of my research – which is very light on current events, and concerns more than just Estvar history – and just living with Adrienne. She is very conscious of Estvar politics, and has definite _opinions_ on it.” She shook her head, but she was still smiling. Well, Roy had known that she’d have to be fond of Adrienne Ismailu to partner with her in alchemical research for as long as she had.

Knowing Liselotte’s preferences, Ismailu was probably a partner in _more_ than just alchemical research, but that sort of thing was frowned upon under Bradley’s administration, so Roy maintained a deliberate ignorance on the subject when it came to most people, even outside the military.

“I am – rather surprised, to be honest, that a woman like your partner would come from the Ishvalan culture,” Roy said, resting his cheek on his hand. “You’d think a people so afraid of alchemy would never raise a woman so interested in human transmutation.” He glanced over at Liselotte, and saw her annoyed expression. “Or am I incorrect?”

“Depends on whether or not you buy into Bradley’s racist propaganda,” Liselotte said coolly.

Roy closed his eyes, and tried to keep his voice even as he said, “Well, I know from experience that the Ishvalans didn’t field any alchemists to _fight_ us, and I can’t imagine they’d neglect to do that if they _weren’t_ as terrified of alchemy as people say.” He opened his eyes again. “With the obvious exceptions of people like your partner.”

Liselotte wasn’t angry yet, but she was certainly annoyed. Her expression was cold, jaw clenched, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. She tapped the upholstered arm of her chair with one finger, barely making any noise. She always had been restrained in her anger, with the exceptions of the few times she exploded and actually punched people when she was younger. Roy assumed it was something she learned from her father, because there were rumors of MG Horace de Prie throwing chairs after unwelcome news, but only around subordinates, and _never_ his superiors. Around his superiors, he was always cool, calm, and collected.

“Which thing do you take offense to?” Roy asked. “The assumption that the Ishvalans didn’t field any alchemists because I didn’t see them, or the idea that they all hate alchemy?”

Liselotte’s eyebrows came together, green eyes drilling into Roy’s, and then she flexed her fingers and deliberately relaxed, looking to the side. “Did you realize,” she began softly, “that you’ve gone back to referring to them as _Ishvalans_ , instead of as Estvarat?”

It wasn’t the response Roy was expecting. “I hadn’t realized,” he said. “My apologies. I will do better – I assume the term Ishvalan is somewhat insulting to them, then?”

“It’s not a term they have chosen for themselves,” Liselotte said, a diplomat’s answer.

Roy nodded, and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, elbows resting on the armrests of his chair. There were inconsistencies in his perception of the Ish – no, the _Estvarat_ , apparently. Part of it was the fact that he’d assumed Adrienne Ismailu to be Zetiani because of her last name, and so the evidence that the Estvarat _did_ encourage alchemy was not available to him. No – that’s inaccurate as well, because he had _known_ that Liselotte studied Estvarat – Estvar? Estvara? – alchemy (although she’d always called them _Ishvalans_ in discussion with him before now), and _not_ Zetiani alchemy. There was no reason for Ismailu to be from a notoriously isolationist country, as Liselotte observed earlier, not when she could be from a culture geographically closer to Amestris.

And so: the current evidence was in favor of Roy being willfully ignorant. He had deliberately chosen to believe a more impossible thing, because the alternative clashed with xenophobic propaganda that was popularized by the very men that he sought to usurp.

It was not a very comforting thought.

“Why would Bradley benefit from spreading the myth that the Estvarat are terrified of alchemy?” Roy mused. He didn’t expect Liselotte to answer; he was talking to himself more than to her at the moment. “It couldn’t be to lessen the fear of war for foot soldiers – the Cretans and Aerugonians won’t field alchemists either, because of the Alchemical Ceasefire of 1738.” _The one that Amestris was all but ignoring_ , he didn’t say, because he didn’t have to. Liselotte was sure to know about the shitstorm out West last April, caused by Mörser ordering alchemists out into a battle with Cretan forces.

“I suppose it was just a way to differentiate them from us,” Roy continued. “There were plenty of people who thought they were strange anyways, with their red eyes.” Other races had dark skin and white hair, but only the Ish – the _Estvarat_ had red eyes. Roy remembered that Letoists sympathetic with Bradley during the Massacre had said those eyes meant that the Estvarat were hated by their god. Red was the color of death in their religion.

“It was fairly easy for Bradley to build on that distrust, and construct an image of the Estvarat as a backwards-thinking, intolerant, and dangerous people,” Liselotte said softly, as if sensing Roy’s train of thought. She bared her teeth in what was clearly _not_ a smile. “Fearful of alchemy, and fearsome in their _foreign ways_.”

“Exactly what he needed to win the support of the people for what turned out to be a pointless war,” Roy said. “Pointless, unless the point _was_ to try and exterminate their entire population.” He frowned. “Except – he must have known about the other cities. Maybe not much, but they’re not exactly a secret. So why didn’t he continue pushing east?”

Liselotte shrugged. “The media coverage of the Extermination started to turn the public against him, in the last couple of months.”

“We both know that wouldn’t be enough. He censored enough anti-war media coverage in the past,” Roy said, still frowning. “So – what, did it just get _boring_ for him?”

“Adrienne thinks that Bradley and his council might have known about the alchemical resources that the Estvarat held further east,” Liselotte said. “It was feasible to order his dogs to wipe out defenseless civilians, but not as feasible if they should go up against fully trained Estvar alchemists.”

“So why didn’t the Estvar alchemists come west? How did we not see any of them?”

“Some did, on their own. But they didn’t _fight_. Most of them – that I’m aware of, at least – chose to do relief work, instead. Evacuation, recovery, medical work. The official orders were for an evacuation, according to Adrienne, and anyone who did otherwise would be in violation of the law.”

Roy shook his head. He no longer derived much satisfaction from the effects of his flame alchemy, except for a bit of pride when he used it to effectively and efficiently bring a case to a close, but he couldn’t imagine being in possession of alchemy, walking into a war zone, and _not_ using that alchemy to fight the people trying to kill him. Especially with the rampant destruction that the State Alchemists were responsible for – he’d seen pictures of the wreck that Kimblee left of his districts in Kanda, and he would never forget his own districts in Daliha.

“I don’t think I could have stopped myself from attacking the enemy,” he said softly.

Liselotte nodded, and shrugged. “I’m sure that the Estvar alchemists engaged with soldiers and Amestrian alchemists when they had to. However, all Estvarat, especially their alchemists, are deeply aware of the dangers inherent in the use of alchemy.”

“In the ‘hubris of pretending to be God’?” Roy asked. “So Bradley’s propaganda had _some_ truth to it?”

Liselotte rolled her eyes. “Some Estvarat think that, but they don’t all share the same beliefs. They’re not a _monolith_. No, what I mean by the dangers inherent in the use of alchemy is – well, Estvar alchemy, called arcanum, tends to be more spiritual than Amestrian alchemy. Amestrian alchemy is treated like a science –“

“Alchemy _is_ a science,” Roy interjected. “With the principle of equivalent exchange, alchemists need to know the exact composition of elements in order to conduct transmutations with them. It’s not _magic_ , we understand exactly what we’re doing.”

Liselotte fixed him with a look, and he stopped talking. She didn’t need the lecture, anyways, despite her odd views about what constituted _science_ and what constituted _magic_. It was usually the civilians who had never seen an alchemist before, but avidly read _The People’s Alchemist_ every Monday morning, who believed that alchemists could conjure things out of nothing.

“While Amestrian alchemy is very standardized in its study, arcanum is more… philosophical,” Liselotte continued. “That’s one reason why there are many more Estvar alchemists willing to discuss Amestrian taboos like human transmutation. It’s dangerous to try and change the human soul, but there’s much more precedent in the tradition of arcanum than in the tradition of alchemy.”

Roy had to force away the memory of the monster in the basement of the Elrics’ house, a shiver of revulsion running down his spine. Even if he’d known Liselotte’s partner studied the taboo, he hadn’t realized that she wasn’t an outlier in her field. “So they only use alchemy in order to study the worst parts of alchemy, not to defend their own civilians?” His voice was sharper than he wanted it to be.

“That’s the thing: human transmutation _isn’t_ considered the worst part of alchemy in Estvar philosophy,” Liselotte said impatiently. “It’s not a common field of study, but it’s not a taboo like it is in Amestris. Roy, what did you _expect_? You don’t get to come here, and ask about human transmutation _on behalf of two children_ , and then get disgusted when the expert you wanted to consult _actually knows about human transmutation_.”

“It’s not… that I expected your partner to have no experience with it,” Roy said slowly, marshalling his thoughts. “It’s… I suppose I’ve had a lot of my beliefs about the Ish – no, the _Estvarat_ , challenged tonight, and I’ve always believed human transmutation to be the worst thing a person could do. More so, after I saw that monster the Elrics created out of their attempt, and the misery left in its wake. Normal transmutations balance intake and result. With human transmutation, people attempt the impossible and are left with… tragic results.”

Liselotte nodded, expression thoughtful. “Your boys – what exactly did they try?”

“Resurrecting their mother, I was told,” Roy said. “Like everyone else in recorded history.”

“Hm,” Liselotte said, tilting her head up to look at the ceiling. “Unlike human transmutation, resurrection actually _is_ a taboo in Estvar culture. Death is final, and anyone who tries to interfere with it deserves every punishment set to them by the Gatekeeper, by Estvar law.”

“Those boys did _not_ deserve to lose their bodies for a mistake,” Roy said heatedly, leaning forward.

Liselotte rolled her eyes. “Of course those boys didn’t deserve to lose body parts. Don’t group me in with those warmongering fuckheads you work with, Roy.”

Roy winced and leaned back. “I suppose that isn’t a completely inaccurate assessment of the military hierarchy, at times.”

“So why did you _recruit a child_ into such an institution, then?”

Ah, there it was. Liselotte’s voice hadn’t changed much, nor did her posture, but this was what Roy had been expecting all night.

“I found them in the aftermath of the transmutation, when I was recruiting alchemists in the wake of the Massacre. They were prodigies, they had broken the law, and had nearly broken themselves in the process. I took them under my wing, you could say, to keep others away from them.”

“And the fact that you’d get an obviously talented subordinate never crossed your mind,” Liselotte said, eyebrows raised sardonically.

Roy shrugged. “I won’t lie to you, Liselotte. You know me, and you know my ambitions. Of _course_ that fact crossed my mind.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “But – call me optimistic, or naïve, but I hoped that I would be able to protect the boys. Give them a chance to research ways to get their bodies back, without the danger of the military finding out what they did.”

“Because the military would already _know_ what they did, you mean.”

“Because the military would be given a very convincing – and not altogether untrue – backstory for them that would give investigative generals everything they’d ever want to see.”

“And you think no one would question it?”

It was Roy’s time to give Liselotte an incredulous look. “Liselotte, please.”

“It’s not your first time creating convincingly fake backgrounds?” Liselotte said, smirking a little.

“You’re met my aunt, and you _still_ have to ask me that? For shame.”

Liselotte snorted a laugh. Her hand came up to hide a grin, and she shifted in her chair until she was sitting sideways, one leg up on the arm. Roy thought it looked uncomfortable, but Liselotte always fell into it whenever she felt comfortable enough to be informal. It was a good sign, that the hard parts of the conversation were over for now. He hadn’t expected to talk her around so easily on Edward’s age, but maybe living with Adrienne Ismailu was mellowing her out.

“Fullmetal only has two years left, this September,” Roy said quietly. “In two years, the military won’t have any more hold on him. I can keep him safe that long.”

“What if he decides he wants to leave before then?” Liselotte asked, just as quietly.

Roy quirked a smile. “The moment Edward Elric cares about risking a dishonorable discharge is also the moment he starts to care about the chain of command. By which, I mean, _never_.”

“Just because he doesn’t care about it doesn’t mean no one else will,” Liselotte said. She’d be speaking from experience, of course.

“I’m doing my best to prevent that possibility,” Roy said. It was true: between bribing the Elrics with information on the Philosopher’s Stone or other opportunities to get their bodies back and making sure Edward was handed only the most interesting cases, Roy was doing the most he could to keep Edward actively engaged in military work. Tours of duty were always a little complicated with State Alchemists, because research alchemists had to renew their contracts each year to continue receiving benefits, but those in the command line had the typical five-year contracts. Edward’s age was also a complicating factor; he wasn’t old enough to complete the officer’s academy to _officially_ be in the command line as a major, but he was too skilled in the field for Roy’s supervisors to allow him to be merely a research alchemist.

The entire business raised problems that Roy hoped to solve, once he was Führer.

“If human transmutation is considered separate from resurrection, then what is it used for?” Roy asked finally, recalling Liselotte’s comment about taboos in Estvar culture.

“You tell me,” Liselotte said. “Since you read Adrienne’s paper in _Alkimia International_ , after all.”

Roy gave her a dirty look. “Your partner discussed ways of healing the body through touching the soul, which sounded fairly mystical and impossible, until she mentioned the Gate.”

Liselotte nodded. “So you’ve found mentions of the Gate in combination with human transmutation?”

“Fullmetal mentioned it once or twice. He didn’t explain it.”

“Adrienne hasn’t said much to me about it, either,” Liselotte said. “She just says that it’s a conduit of energy, and everyone has one. She thinks they’re connected to souls.”

“Right, souls. ‘What is the measure of a human soul?’” Roy quoted from Thomas Behmen’s _Gold Book_. Dating to the early seventeenth century, it was one of the founding books of Amestrian alchemical study.

“Depends on the person, according to the results of human transmutation,” Liselotte said.

Roy paused, and considered it.

When he didn’t respond, Liselotte continued, “The theories Adrienne discussed in that article are on the border of human transmutation, which is, as defined by the Estvarat, just alchemy that affects the soul rather than the material world.”

“So, what, your partner visits the Gate every time she goes to heal someone?” Roy asked, skeptical.

“No, definitely not,” Liselotte said. “From what I’ve gathered, visiting the Gate is a near-death experience. That’s why those theories are just borderline human transmutation; they deal with the soul, but not changing it as irrevocably as human transmutation does.”

Roy shook his head. “I’m not sure why you said you couldn’t help Edward and Alphonse yourself, if you know this much about the subject.”

Liselotte winced. “I always try to defer to experts with practical knowledge of a subject.”

“But you said her theories are just borderline.”

“Her _theories_ are. Theories that she developed after performing human transmutation on herself.”

“On _herself_?” Roy said in surprise. He tried to reconcile the image of the Elrics’ transmutation with the idea that Liselotte’s partner performed it on herself, and couldn’t. _Because the former was resurrection, and the latter was not_ , he reminded himself.

“It was to gain knowledge. Trade a bit of herself, for knowledge,” Liselotte explained tiredly. “She was almost seventeen, there was an array that had been refined for centuries in the Estvar records, and she felt she needed it to help her people.”

Roy made an inquisitive sound.

“It was in 1908, five months before Bradley announced Order 3066,” Liselotte said softly. “She and her younger sibling were planning to go to Ishval and help with the evacuation of refugees.” She paused. “I didn’t know until a year and a half ago that she was still alive.”

There was nothing Roy could say to that, so he stayed quiet. Part of him wanted to ask which city Adrienne Ismailu had gone to, but he wasn’t sure how he’d feel if the answer was Daliha.

Finally, Liselotte shook her head. “Anyways, Adrienne says she got what she wanted, but I also know what she gave up for it, and I don’t think it would be worth it.”

A large part of Roy now wanted to ask what Liselotte’s partner had sacrificed to human transmutation, but tact compelled him to keep quiet again. Judging from the Elrics’ reactions to any sort of questions about their bodies, Ismailu’s price would be a sensitive subject, even if it was one she paid willingly. Maybe he could breach the subject with her later, once they had met in person. If he managed not to insult her upon meeting her, which wasn’t guaranteed. Roy wouldn’t want to meet one of the monsters who massacred his people, even if they were his partner’s friend.

There was so much tragedy in the world. Roy did his best to protect everyone under his command, and was clawing his way up the ranks in order to protect more people, but it could be years before enough generals retired or died so that his path to the Führer’s office was open. There were others above him who he thought shared some of his ideals, but not many, and none above the rank of Lieutenant General, leaving the future of the country in the hands of men like General Blake Raven, whose idea of protecting the country meant increasing security checks in train stations, which just created an atmosphere of fear throughout the country.

“You’re brooding,” Liselotte said suddenly. “Stop it.”

Roy started in his chair, and realized he’d been too caught up in his thoughts to pay attention to what Liselotte had been saying or doing, because she was suddenly standing in front of him, hands on her hips. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”

Liselotte raised her eyebrows. “You don’t say.”

“I can’t tell you confidential military business,” Roy said wearily. “And don’t bother saying that you weren’t going to ask, because I know you, and I know that face.”

“It was worth a chance,” Liselotte said with a smile.

“It always is, with you.”

Liselotte stood and stretched her arms over her head. “Well, since it’s been a long day for both of us, let’s get to bed.”

Roy stood as well, and headed for the door. “It was lovely to see you, Liselotte, as always.”

Before he reached it, Liselotte was already there, with a hand on the doorknob and an amused expression on her face. “What, am I not young enough for Roy mustang to spend the night with?” she asked lightly.

“Uh,” Roy said.

“Aunt Christ tells me you’re known as a womanizer,” Liselotte replied. “Some of her girls help out, apparently. You take them out to dinner, and you go to a hotel room with them, and then you discuss slightly illegal things until you both fall asleep.”

“Um,” Roy said. Well, that was one way to put it.

Liselotte tilted her head to one side, and gave him a genuine smile. “C’mon. It’s late, your hotel’s probably across town, and we’ll keep our clothes on.”

“What about your partner?” Roy asked.

Liselotte snorted a laugh. “Don’t worry, she knows I don’t go for men. You play my beard tonight, and I’ll help your reputation.”

That wasn’t exactly what Roy had meant, but it was clear Liselotte was comfortable with sharing a bed with him. Or at least the idea of it. “Alright,” he said, and turned away from the door, taking off his jacket.

“Great,” Liselotte said, and went to scoop her clothes off the bed. “Hope you don’t hog the blankets.”

* * *

_There is much spirited debate over whether or not Order 3066 violated the 1738 International Agreement of Alchemical Ceasefire, but one thing everyone seems to agree upon is the utter destruction wrought by Amestrian State Alchemists within Ishval. The early-responding works of Dr. Adrian Rohan (1910) and Professor Marian Lee (1911) have centered the discussion in this matter upon the psychological trauma of the event upon the citizens of Amestris (both the soldiers who served and the private citizens who were able to follow the conflict through the advent of battlefield photography). This author does not dispute that the Ishvalan Massacre holds trauma in the Amestrian public consciousness, but one must imagine how much worse it must be for the Ishvalans whose society was destroyed._

\- Marceline Clairvaux, excerpt from _A Child Shot in Ishval: An Account of the Ishvalan Massacre_ (South City: Mercyhurst Publishers, 1913)

 _Mrs. Clairvaux was the first person, journalist or otherwise, who suggested that the acts of the Amestrian State Alchemists in Ishval were monstrous instead of patriotic. While her narrative of the last year of the Amestrian-Ishvalan conflict tended towards sensationalism, Mrs. Clairvaux makes a convincing argument: if Ishvalans are Amestrians, as F_ _ührer Bradley said, then shouldn’t the wanton destruction of their lives be considered a war crime? The Crimson Lotus Alchemist was tried for war crimes, but records have shown that his trial only came after he attacked Amestrian military personnel..._

- Dr. Samuel Clay, “The Legality of War Crimes in Ishval,” _Amestrian Legal Journal_ 13 (1914)

* * *

The full moon was waning in the sky, its light cut by clouds that skid past in the wind. A storm was moving in on Central City, but it probably wouldn’t hit until late tomorrow, after the State Alchemist exams were all over. The military could collect more poor sods to turn into murderers without getting rained on. With the exams tomorrow and the alchemical conference all week, there were more alchemists – State or otherwise – in Central City than usual. Most were private citizens, funding their research through a combination of private practice, consulting, and academia. These were not the alchemists that the Qarwa Sayfat was interested in.

The Qarwa Sayfat was only interested in the State Alchemists who were guilty of war crimes during the Extermination, and more specifically, those the judges had marked for execution. The Smoke Alchemist, guilty of creating arrays that released poisonous gasses that killed only after prolonged periods of pain, was executed at the beginning of the year. The Richter Alchemist was found two months later, buried under a rockslide similar to those he used to bury fleeing civilians alive in Daliha. Less than a month later the Wellspring Alchemist, whose work had also been seen in Daliha, died in a house fire. Finally, exactly a month ago, the Atmospheric Alchemist was suffocated by her own array in her own home.

 _Yelimat_ taught that all murder did was harm the All through the One, but these deaths were not murders but _justice_. It had been proven that the Amestrian government would not punish these alchemists for their bloody crimes but laud them as heroes, and so the Qarwa Sayfat was created to determine what they deserved.

Scar perched on the roof of an apartment building in the Rhone neighborhood, waiting for the Silver Alchemist to finally limp past. He was staying in a hotel a few streets over, and the Underground station across the way was the nearest on the direct line from the Stadtkrone. He had come out of his workshop in North City for the alchemical conference this week, creating a window of opportunity for the Qarwa Sayfat to strike. Scar’s team had their last mission at the end of February, tackling the Richter Alchemist in East City, but they hadn’t received the Silver Alchemist’s name until three weeks ago. The judges and the spies were all very precise about their work; it wouldn’t do to sentence a person to death who did not need to die.

The Silver Alchemist, however: he had shown no signs of remorse for his actions in Gunja during the Extermination, and had continued to show a heavy hand when dealing with civilians afterwards. During one case three months ago, he had come across a refugee family of Estvarat from Kanda, and he had slaughtered them without asking questions. There had been no repercussions for his actions: his superior had made up a story about a group of criminals smuggling explosives into the country, and the Silver Alchemist received a commendation for his patriotic actions.

His death would not please the One, for the One was never pleased with death, but his death _would_ ease the way of the All left in this lifetime, and that was a goal worthy of giving up one’s name and living as _shykish_ until justice was complete. If Scar died before he could retake a name, his walk through the desert would be long and difficult, but he had accepted that when he joined the Qarwa Sayfat, as had the rest of his team.

A squat, stout figure in a grey suit and Homburg hat made its way down the street, metal cane clicking against the uneven stone paving. That would be the Silver Alchemist. Scar was too far away to see his face, but he and his team had tracked the man’s movements in Central City for the past four days and nights, and he was a man of habit.

A monster of habit, perhaps, would be more accurate.

Scar reached into his pocket and pressed a small metal token. A small discharge of alchemical energy crackled in the air around it, and the green stone embedded in it glowed for a moment and then dimmed again. A second later, the yellow stone glowed and then dimmed; the purple stone remained dim. That meant that Little Sister had seen the Silver Alchemist and was following him in the streets. She was smaller, drawing less attention than Scar’s own hulking form. He tucked the metal token back in his pocket, and started making his way towards the meeting point.

The metal tokens disturbed him. Scar had grown up in a good family in Kanda, older brother notwithstanding, who prayed to the One through Ishvala the Warrior. Since he was young, both family and the _yelimat_ at the local _kanah_ emphasized the importance of discipline and strength. It felt disingenuous to use the arrays inscribed on the tokens, even if it was just as a signal, and even if they were created by true _arcanumat_ instead of foreign alchemists. If the One had not wanted humans to be able to use it, they would not have the power – or so said the _yelimat_ who favored Kishneu the Maker, sponsor of the _arcanumat_ – but power beyond physical means felt too dangerous a prospect most of the time. There was too much possibility for unchecked corruption and hubris.

His older brother had been evidence of that. Scar would never forgive Matan for what he did during the Extermination. In the form of his right arm, Matan had given Scar both his life and his life’s work in alchemy, neither of which Scar would have accepted had Matan asked for his consent before starting his last transmutation.

Scar emerged onto the main road by the bridge over the Rheos River onto the Fifth Insel, a block over from the Silver Alchemist’s hotel. His path over through the back alleys got him there before the murderer reached the intersection of road and bridge.

There was no one else in the immediate area. The Klein Insel neighborhood – consisting of the Fith and Sixth Insels, two of the six islands on the river within the city – and the Rhone streets that bordered the river were usually quite empty after dark. The doors had metal grates that slid down and locked at the bottom, and the windows had barred grates in front of their shutters and glass panes. Scar wouldn’t have expected a State Alchemist to rent a room in this neighborhood, but the spies whispered about a bitter old man who had gambled his way into more debt than even his State Alchemist salary could dig him out of. A room in a cheap neighborhood for a few nights would make more sense, when one considered that the Silver Alchemist could defend himself.

But not from his past, and not from them.

Here the Silver Alchemist came, limping his way down the road, Little Sister just barely seen ghosting in the shadows behind him. Scar stepped back into the alleyway he emerged from, drawing close to the wall to make himself less visible. He couldn’t see the third member of the team yet, but One-Ear should be across the bridge, waiting for them to call for backup, if they ended up needing it. Scar cut a formidable figure, between his large form, training in martial arts, and occasional use of the Arcanum his brother forced upon him. Little Sister appeared less formidable, but was more vicious, her anger at losing her older sister to a State Alchemist burning through her more with each year that passed.

Everyone eventually felt the burning sands of the desert. Not everyone had to die first to feel them. It was a tragedy of this life that more young people these days – children or almost, sometimes – carried around that burning heat far before their times.

A tragedy caused by monster like the Silver Alchemist.

Scar readied himself as the alchemist approached, and stepped out into the street, blocking the murderer’s way.

“Who is that?” the Silver Alchemist asked, pausing in the middle of the street.

“Your death,” Scar replied, and struck. He charged the alchemist, dodging the arrowheads that flew in his direction. Spiked balls trailing heavy chains followed; those, he deconstructed with a wide arc of his tattooed right arm.

The Silver Alchemist’s arrays were tattooed onto his hands; he just had to reach out and focus to transmute material into metal weapons. _Not_ silver, which was a relatively soft material, but instead varying compositions of steel. It didn’t matter much to Scar or Matan’s deconstruction array, but Little Sister had ben particularly offended that the murderer’s name wasn’t an accurate description.

“You would challenge the Silver Alchemist, Giulio Comanche, to battle? You’ve got nerve!” the murderer cried, flinging two throwing stars in Scar’s direction.

Scar dove out of the way of the projectiles, rolling his eyes at the alchemist’s theatrics. He landed on his feet, and cut to the side of the Silver Alchemist. His enemy swiped forward with a transmuted blade, but Scar was too fast for it to hit.

“Not doing so well, are you?” the Silver Alchemist said, laughing as if he _enjoyed_ this. “Can’t get close enough to make a hit!”

Normally, Scar wouldn’t respond, but that laugh angered him. To take pride in one’s skills was natural; to enjoy the exchange of blows and blood in battle was to court the Shadow of Xerxes and the destruction of humanity.

“I don’t need to touch you to kill you,” Scar said bluntly, and charged again.

The sword disintegrated with a touch. The Silver Alchemist stumbled backwards, summoning more weighted chains. Scar snarled when one wrapped around his torso before he could deconstruct it. The spiked weight landed in the center of his chest, throwing him off balance and ripping open his shirt. He stumbled back over the chain attached to the weight, cursing himself for losing his root.

 _Ishvala doesn’t watch you anymore, stupid shykishi_ , he thought to himself.

He ripped the chain off his chest with his right arm, links deconstruction in a crackle of blue energy, and got his feet under him in time to dodge the two more throwing stars coming his way. _Mostly_ , he realized when he felt the bite of the second one in his left thigh as the first one flew over his head.

“Not bad at all! You got off with just a scratch,” the Silver Alchemist taunted. He had transmuted another blade, and stood with it pointed towards the ground, other hand smoothing his long moustache.

Scar was about to respond when weighted chains wrapped around the Silver Alchemist’s torso and neck and dragged him off the street and over the railing into the river. The _crack_ of bone breaking as the chain tightened around the murderer’s neck meant he was dead before he hit the surface of the river. Even so, Scar made his way over to the railing, left arm curled gingerly around his injured torso, and peered over the side to see the ripples disappear under the current of the river. He couldn’t see the body; the water was too dirty for that.

“Thanks for the distraction,” Little Sister said, coming up to lean on the railing beside Scar. The top of her close-shaved head barely came up to his shoulder. Although she was nineteen years old, she looked like a child standing next to him.

“You cut it close,” Scar replied. His ribs on the left side of his torso ached too much for him to thank Little Sister for simply following the plan.

Scar was large and threatening, a suitable distraction. Little Sister was small, quick, and clever with a transmutation circle. All three of them – Scar, Little Sister, and One-Ear – had agreed to execute their State Alchemists with their own arrays as a sign of Estvar justice. One-Ear had no mind for these Amestrian arrays and Scar disliked using more alchemy than his signal token and the deconstruction array on his arm; Little Sister was the only one on the team with the mind and drive to turn the array against alchemist.

A slender person in a long, grey Amestrian-style coat made its way over the bridge from the Fifth Insel: One-Ear, shorn head covered in a dark blue scarf. When xe was close enough to be seen clearly, xe took xyr hands out of xyr pockets and signed, _If you two don’t need backup, I don’t see why I need to be dragged out into the cold just to stand around doing looking inconspicuous._

Little Sister laughed. She knew sign language because her dead sister had been mute; Scar knew sign language because he had wanted to be a _yelimi_ for Ishvala, and all _yelimat_ must know sign language as well as Estvarat to effectively minister to all people who would come to them for help.

“And if we had needed help, and you were across the city in our temporary quarters?” Scar asked stiffly.

One-Ear shook xer head, frowning over the railing at the river. _It is nearly summer, it should be warm_ , xe signed, and then stuck xyr hands back in xyr pockets. Xe wasn’t a bad team member, just very sensitive to the cold. Xyr family came from Baida, nearly nine hundred kilometers to the southeast of Central City. Baida’s territory was not as dry as Veriha or Yahva, but the brisk May weather up here was like winter back home.

“How long will the body stay under?” Little Sister asked.

“It should not surface for a week, unless man interferes,” Scar replied, when it was clear One-Ear wasn’t going to take xyr hands out of xyr pockets again to answer. “After that, the body will surface, despite the chains weighing it down.” Not ideal – the chains made it clear the Silver Alchemist had been killed, instead of providing a scenario that could be ruled an accident or suicide – but One-Ear hoped that the river’s current would pull the body out of the city far enough that it wouldn’t be found until much later. If the body reached the lake surrounding Aquroya without discovery, it might never be found.

After another moment of silence, the three of them staring at the gentle waves on the surface of the river, Scar turned away. “We should go, in case anyone heard the fight.”

Little Sister snorted, but turned to follow him. “Like anyone would care in this neighborhood.”

“It does to be cautious,” Scar reproached. One-Ear nodded and knocked Little Sister’s shoulder with theirs, signaling xyr agreement with Scar. Together, all three made their way into the shadows of the alleyways, leaving the street as barren and empty as they had found it.


	2. Conversations on Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dead body is found; international espionage is planned; the military remains as shady as ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [@komiv](http://archiveofourown.org/users/komiv) for reading over the chapter section by section as I wrote them.  
> Thank you also to everyone who reviewed the first chapter!
> 
> S/O to my dad and friends for tolerating my increasingly frustrated questions about how fast a mechanical pocket watch would stop working while being submerged in water. S/O to Google for telling me a lot more about what dead bodies look like after being submerged in water.
> 
> I will try not to go longer than a month without updating, but I have my chapters Very Planned Out, so it might happen in the future. (It took me _months_ to kill off the Silver Alchemist in the first chapter.)

_On a tragic note, Dr. Laurel Wilms, the Atmospheric Alchemist, was found dead in her home in Sigisplatz on Tuesday. As of right now, the military investigation into her death has ruled out the possibility of a suicide and instead has connected it to the other three State Alchemist deaths within the past four months. The leader of the investigation is still Colonel Roy Mustang, the Hero of Ishval. He commented during the official press briefing this afternoon that they are closer than ever to catching this heinous criminal. Everyone here at the Radio City Music Hall wishes the investigation luck! In other news…_

\- an excerpt from the radio show _On the Air in Central City_ on April 15, 1914

* * *

It was an awful business, fishing dead bodies out of the river.

Maes Hughes crossed his arms, squinted up at the clouds covering the early morning sunlight, and then glanced over at the cluster of officers and civilians by the bridge over to the bank of the Sixth Insel. There were a trio of kids, dirty and irreverent towards military officers, who had found the body when they came down to check their nets. There were rarely good fish in the Rheos at this point on the river – the water was more brown then blue – but sometimes people threw things into the river that would be carried downstream and get caught in the nets. The kids and their families would clean up the items and keep them or sell them. It had come up on cases before – a pawn shop claiming that they’d gotten a valuable from the fishers instead of stealing it outright, like the original owner claimed, that sort of thing.

This was the first time that a dead body had turned up in the nets. Then again, considering the reputation of the Fifth Insel, maybe it was more surprising that more bodies hadn’t been dumped off the bridges to get caught on the Sixth Insel nets before now.

That wasn’t fair, Maes decided, looking at the kids who found the body. Just because the Klein Insel neighborhood was poor, dirty, and not well taken care of, didn’t mean everyone here was a criminal. Most of them, including those kids, were just trying to survive under a government that didn’t care about them.

He sighed and looked down the steps to the quay where the body was laid out, still wrapped in the weighted metal chains it had been discovered with, flanked by medical examiners. At least the body wasn’t bloated beyond recognition yet, although it was definitely stinking.

It was good that the body had remained within city limits. It would have been a _mess_ of paperwork if the body had been discovered further downstream, if it would have been discovered at all. The southern point of the Sixth Insel was extremely close to the city limits, and had been a dumping ground for bodies for centuries before the first führer had increased the policing of the area almost a half-century ago. It was easy for a dead body to be swept downstream and be buried in the mud of the lake around Aquroya before it could be found.

That was probably what this man’s killer had hoped for. And it would have worked, if it weren’t for the nets that caught on the body’s limbs and dragged the body to the surface.

Maes fingered the dead man’s silver pocket watch, rubbing his thumb over the engraved dragon and hexagram that made up the Amestrian State Alchemist’s symbol. The watch was obviously broken; it had leaked water when Maes had pulled it out of the alchemist’s pocket and opened it. The arms were stuck pointing to 11:41, and there was no apparent damage other than being submerged in the river, which meant that the body must have been dumped before then. Probably several hours earlier, according to 1LT Eliza Cooke’s offhand comment earlier about how fast metal mechanisms break down in water. And, also according to Cooke, advances in automail gave the prostheses increased protection from being dunked in a river for a few hours.

He’d have to pass the good news on to Ed, although the Elric brothers must have already discovered those advances. Kid was harder on his arm and leg than on his pocket watch, and the watch broke more times than the arm or leg. He must have one heck of an automail mechanic.

There was a commotion over by the perimeter of military guards: Roy had arrived. Or rather, _Colonel Mustang_ had arrived. Gloves: check; determined stride: check; scowl: check. Though that last one might just be the early hour.

When Roy stopped next to him, Maes handed over the State Alchemist pocket watch and said, “This was found on the body. Do you recognize him?”

“Another State Alchemist dead?” Roy asked, taking the watch. He opened the cover, and turned it over, probably checking for identifying markings like Maes had a half-hour earlier. There were only initials carved into the back: G. C. “This might be Giulio Comanche, the Silver Alchemist. The moustache looks familiar, as well.”

“He was wrapped in metal chains when we hauled him out,” Maes commented.

“That would fit the pattern,” Roy said, and then sighed deeply. “Do you know if the chains were transmuted?”

Maes glanced at him. “We’ve held off on examining them too closely. We’re trying to figure out when he was killed, and where that might have happened.”

Roy nodded, frowning. He looked terrible under the confidence he wore like a cape, but that wasn’t unusual. Maes knew he slept as much during the day as he did at night most of the time, catching naps to make up for sleep lost to nightmares.

“Sleep alright?” Maes asked, lowering his voice.

Roy blinked, and turned to look at Maes. “About as well as I usually do,” he said. “Maybe better. Liselotte didn’t say anything about it this morning.”

“Liselotte.”

“De Prie,” Roy said, as if that explained why Roy was suddenly spending the night with her.

“I know you _like women_ , Roy, but really? I didn’t think you were her type,” Maes said, maybe a little sharper than he’d intended.

Roy frowned again. “We just shared a bed, Maes. I think she’s on edge, being in the same city as her father.”

Maes nodded. Not everyone was accepting of people’s private preferences, and Führer Bradley’s conservative stance on the matter didn’t help. None of his generals were known for liberal values, and he doubted MG Horace de Prie was any different. “Next time you can invite her back to our house,” Maes said.

“Maes,” Roy started, sounded exasperated.

“No, Roy, we barely see you,” Maes interrupted. “Gracia misses you, and Elicia misses you. I don’t know why you got a hotel room this week, anyways.” Roy remained silent, but Maes knew his point was heard. “Have I shown you my latest pictures of Elicia? She’s getting so big, and so _cute_!”

“Later,” Roy said, and walked off to loom over the shoulders of the medical examiners looking at the body. Maes shrugged, and followed him down the stairs to the quay. He’d hold Roy to that promise.

The body was laid out flat on the paving stones next to the water, still wrapped in the metal chains that Maes’s officers had fished it out of the river in. The medical officers were scribbling notes down on their clipboards, but got out of the way for Roy and Maes as they approached. Roy kneeled down next to the corpse, examining the chains, probably for transmutation marks. Maes remained standing, hands in his pockets. If he were just starting out as an officer, he’d hold his nose against the smell, but as a lieutenant colonel he needed to maintain the dignity of his station. He’d never hear the end of it from his team if he held his nose from the stench rising form the body.

“These chains were definitely transmuted,” Roy said, settling back onto his heels, apparently immune to the smell. “And the weights on the end of them follow descriptions of one of Comanche’s favored weapons. It fits the pattern.”

“Killing him with his own weapons?” Maes asked.

“With his own arrays,” Roy corrected grimly. “Donnell was killed by one of her own arrays – it’s why her death was originally ruled a suicide, despite the painful results of her poison gas. The rockslide that killed McCracken was caused by his own array as well – we found it painted onto a crag of rocks above his dead body. Laurel Wilms suffocated, exactly as her arrays intend.”

“But Travieso died in a house fire,” Maes said. “His alchemy had to do with water – the Wellspring Alchemist, it’s in the name.”

Roy paused, face carefully blank. “Wellspring worked ahead of me in – in Daliha. He sucked the water out of the environment, to make things more – _flammable_.”

Ah.

Maes glanced over at the medical examiners huddled together over their notes. “Do you have an estimated time of death?” he asked them.

“Based on the progression of rigor mortis and the time on his pocket watch, we’ve estimated the time of death to be between nine and eleven last night,” the head examiner said. “We’ll have a more exact time once we’ve done an autopsy.”

Roy stood up sharply. “Do you know how long he was caught in the net?”

The head examiner replied, “Based on the markings on his ankle – the body part caught in the net – we think he was caught in it fairly soon after death, maybe around midnight or one in the morning.” He paused. “With how fast the Rheos flows, that should limit the crime scene to the immediate area of the Klein Insel and the bordering banks.”

Roy nodded, then glanced at Maes. “We need to find the crime scene. Any information left by the killer is necessary, with what little we know about them.”

“What _do_ we know about them so far?” Maes asked, hoping that the dearth of information he knew about the case came from heightened security rather than from a lack of clues.

Roy shook his head, and turned away from the body. “We know they’re very good, very well-informed, and an alchemist.”

Maes wrinkled his nose, turning his eyes from Roy’s retreating form back to the soggy, dead body of a State Alchemist on the ground. _That wasn’t at all comforting._

* * *

_LTG Ian Mörser III returns to West Command after six-month audit of Pendleton_

_Annabelle Smith, 19 April 1914_

_Yesterday, General Mörser returned to West City after a six-month-long audit of his command decisions in the sequence of battles with Creta outside Pendleton in April 1913. The audit was called at the request of critics both domestic and international, headed by Cretan and Drachman leaders, who accused him of sending Amestrian soldiers to their deaths needlessly as well as breaking the 1738 International Alchemical Ceasefire. While the audit was happening, General Mörser remained in Central City while his second-in-command, General Willem Bryke, managed West Command. The command audit proceeded faster than expected, and found General Mörser’s command decisions appropriate to their circumstances. Domestic and international resistance to the decision is already making itself known, and many have already suggested an investigation into corruption at Central Command…_

* * *

Adrienne Ismailu had travelled through many of Amestris’s largest cities on her many ventures into international espionage, but she didn’t think there was a city in the country more picturesque than West City. It was a wealthy city, supported by the oldest military families as well as agriculture and the sale of cedar wood from the forests in the area. The streets in the center of the city were wide and well-paved, with well-tended parks scattered throughout the neighborhoods. It was a larger version of Central City’s South Bank, with trendy boutiques and gourmet restaurants that served food at 11,000 cenz a plate.

Of course, it simply wasn’t practical to stay in the city center for very long unless your pockets were deeper than your common sense, so Adrienne had to catch the trolley to bring her to Georgeson Station. There was an information drop point in a rented locker in the train station; a letter had arrived with the key to it yesterday evening, signaling that a packet was waiting. This would be the last update before she and her current associate, Rosario David, would put their plan in motion to steal state secrets from General Mörser. She only hoped the update wouldn’t interfere with their plans.

Rosario was busy going over blueprints of their target’s home – Belfiume, a huge castle fortress given to his family in the sixteenth century – and comparing different exit routes, so it was Adrienne’s job to pick up the information today. Rosario had handled most of the information drops so far, because it was his ring of contacts they were coming through, but Adrienne enjoyed the chance to stretch her legs. After morning prayers, she put dark tinted glasses on to hide her red eyes, caught her long white hair up in a net of sky-blue ribbons, and headed out the door.

The sight of her white hair against her brown skin drew a few looks once she reached the center city, but she had grown to expect those. White hair was more common up north and brown skin was more common in the east, but neither were especially typical, especially in combination, in West Area.

What _was_ unexpected was the response from the greying woman who Adrienne had given her seat to on the trolley. The woman had patted Adrienne’s hand and thanked her for “all the work you young ones do for our country” before getting off at her stop. It baffled Adriene, until she realized the woman probably thought she was a young war veteran, with the scar that stretched across her right cheek.

Not technically wrong, since Adrienne had gotten the scar in Kanda, but she doubted the real story matched up with what the woman imagined.

 _Still_ , Adrienne reminded herself as she disembarked herself, _She meant well. Ignorance, not malice._

From the trolley stop, it was a five minute walk to get into Georgeson Station and find the rental lockers. The number of the locker Adrienne’s key matched was at the end, away from the supervisor’s desk. She unlocked the door and withdrew the packet of paper within. The key was dropped off with the supervisor with a friendly smile, and the papers went in her bag. She resisted looking at the pages in public, no matter how much her hands itched to find out what they said.

The current plan to spy on Mörser was to enter Castle Belfiume during the day tomorrow, posing as tourists there for one of the tours of the inner ward of the fortress. Security was usually tight around the general’s living quarters – the keep was always off-limit to the tours – but there was a high society party planned for tomorrow night. Mörser hired extra help from a service in West City, and the new servants were scheduled to arrive around four in the afternoon, which was around the time that the last tours were finishing up. Adrienne and Rosario planned to slip away from their tour and pose as servants from the service, at least until the party was over and they could interrogate Mörser and search his office. It was bad practice to take confidential documents out of the military commands, but the general was known to take his work home with him, giving the spies an opportunity they wouldn’t have with trying to get into West Command.

The only thing that would interfere with the plan now would be a drastic change in the guest list. The biggest threat was Eden Herstal, the Black Hole Alchemist and Mörser’s not-so-secret mistress. She was an experienced soldier and a capable battle alchemist; Adrienne wanted to avoid fighting her, if possible. Thankfully, she was currently in Central City going over paperwork for her continued State Alchemist certification and wasn’t expected to return to West before Monday, but if plans had changed…

Of course, there was also the possibility that Mörser himself would duck out of the party. It would be a shock to high society, but the general had been fighting with his wife more often since he was called into Central for the command audit, and he might choose to throw a tantrum and join his mistress in Central for the weekend. Rosario’s plans to search Mörser’s office would still work out, but Adrienne’s plans to question the general wouldn’t.

It was hard to interrogate a person when they couldn’t even be bothered to show up for it.

There was a delay on the trolley line back from Georgeson Station, making Adrienne tap her foot in impatience. She crossed and uncrossed her arms a few times before drawing her necklace out of her shirt to fiddle with it instead. The pendant was made of copper: circular, with side flat and engraved with an alchemical array and the other side slightly domed, with two chips of fluorite and bastnäsite embedded in the center. Liselotte had given it to her for the feast of Kishneu last year; when activated, the array would combine the materials into one stone that glowed blue. A little natural light to carry with her wherever she went.

Adrienne smiled, folding the pendant in her fist. Only one and a half more days, give or take a few hours, and she’d see her partner again. She understood why she’d been sent on this mission – Qarwa Sayfat needed to maintain good diplomatic relations to continue their mission of justice, and she was one of their best spies, so she had been loaned to the Cretans for the sake of investigating Mörser and bringing him to justice – but she’d only had a week at home with Liselotte between this one and her last mission. She _missed_ her partner.

The apartment was a mess when Adrienne opened the door, but less of a mess than when she’d left. In between planning sessions, Rosario had evidently gathered up the empty take-out containers they’d amassed over the past couple of weeks and thrown them out. The smell of Aerugonian seafood still lingered, but at least the clutter was gone.

Although, maybe the smell still lingered because Rosario had another carton open beside him, fork twirling in his left hand as he pored over blueprints. He glanced up when Adrienne shut the door behind her. “Pick up went fine?”

Adrienne nodded and signed, _Did you save some food for me?_

Rosario gestured over to the small counter area, where another carton of seafood sat. Adrienne signed a quick _okay_ , then retrieved her dinner and settled into a chair next to him. She dropped her bag next to her chair and fished out the packet of updated information one-handed, clutching her food close in the other. Leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs at the ankle, she handed the packet over to her co-conspirator and let him find out if their plans were scuttled or not.

There were a few thoughtful hums as Rosario sorted through the pages, but nothing darker than a thoughtful frown, so Adrienne felt reassured that it was nothing unexpected.

“Might be easier than we expected,” Rosario said finally, putting the papers down on top of the castle blueprints and settling back in his chair.

Adrienne raised her eyebrows at him in question, continuing to slurp noodles.

Rosario glanced sideways at her. “Mrs. Mörser had a fight with the general yesterday, and won’t be attending the party. The children will be staying with her at the West City townhouse.”

Adrienne nodded slowly. Fewer Mörser family members meant fewer guards once night fell. She balanced her carton of food in her lap and signed, _No other secret guests?_

“Herstal is still engaged in Central until Sunday night,” Rosario replied. “She’s a Letoist, did you know? Even attends Sunday services each week.” He shook his head. “That faith always seemed a bit strange to me. _One_ god, who sees everything on earth and judges each in their turn? Seems like too much of a risk. What if Leto doesn’t happen to like you? Better to have many gods.”

 _Better to carry your god inside you_ , Adrienne replied with a grin. _Then you take no risk at all_.

She didn’t judge Rosario for his beliefs; they surely sprang from the One Who Is All just as surely as hers did, and would return to the All That Is One at the end of time just as she would. The Estvarat knew the three Aspects who stood in place for the All in One in this lifetime, but who was to say there were not other aspects that were known to other people? It was a debated idea among theologists – some said that there was beauty and logic in the balance between the Warrior, the Scholar, and the Maker, and additional aspects would just upset the sacred balance, while others argued that Ishvala, Mishali, and Kishneu might show themselves in different guises to different peoples – but not a particularly controversial one by now.

The Estvarat weren’t like the Letoists, who refused to accept the presence of gods other than their own.

Rosario finished his food, and took the container to the counter to clean his fork and stash the container in a bin below the sink. On his way back, he stopped by the phone and picked up a scrap of paper. “I’d almost forgotten,” he said, holding the paper out to Adrienne. “Your partner called while you were out, and left this message.”

In Rosario’s left-slanting cursive, Adrienne read: _Lise called. Says cousin from Xing intro. her to 2 brothers. Want advice on baking angel food cake. Meet on return. Xoxo_

Even with the truncated words and the fragmentary sentences, Adrienne could reconstruct Liselotte’s message in her head, imagining it in her voice. They’d passed messages through Rosario a couple times over the last two weeks, and a few times before, when Adrienne’s paths coincided with Rosario’s. It was difficult for Adrienne to use telephones without a sign language interpreter to speak her message into the handset, and telegrams weren’t completely secure, because operators sill sent each message by hand. Adrienne rarely stayed anywhere that had upgraded from a telephone party line to private lines in each room, but that was why she and Liselotte generally passed their messages in code.

Cousin from Xing: Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist, who was Xingese on his mother’s side. Interesting; Liselotte hadn’t mentioned she’d be meeting him. Then again, Flame Alchemist wasn’t usually discussed between them; he was Liselotte’s friend, and an enemy of Adrienne’s people.

Advice on baking Angel Food Cake: advice on human transmutation. _Baking_ always meant alchemy, while the recipe referred to the branch of study. There weren’t many alchemical areas that Adrienne was more experienced in than Liselotte, but human transmutation was one of them. Probably a good thing, considering the danger of dealing with human souls, not to mention how it was considered illegal here in Amestris.

Funny: they considered the massacre of children to be a patriotic duty, but ruled that useful branches of alchemy were crimes against nature.

If it was _against nature_ , it wouldn’t be possible to do. Resurrection was considered a crime against nature by her people, _because_ it wasn’t possible and any attempts to make it happen were greeted with harsh punishments.

If it was just considered immoral – that would be something else. Some things were put into the world simply in order to test a person’s humanity. Abuse was immoral. Murder was immoral. Sexual assault was immoral. Working towards the premeditated and ordered extermination of a people was immoral.

The pursuit of knowledge, no matter how dangerous? Not immoral, as long as it was done with full knowledge and consent of all participants. It was how a person acted upon that knowledge that was just or immoral.

“Everything fine with Lise?” Rosario asked, breaking into Adrienne’s thoughts.

She looked up, and gave him a smile. _Just updating me on something_.

“Right. Giving advice on baking now,” Rosario said, a bit dubiously.

 _Are you doubting my skills?_ Adrienne signed, mock-indignant, and then she grinned and tucked Liselotte’s message into her pocket. She picked up her carton of food again, digging back in as Rosario sat down again and resumed his study of Castle Belfiume’s inner workings.

* * *

_We study alchemy scientifically, but that does not mean that we understand it. Not yet, and possibly not ever. We learn more about the natural world each passing day, and so our practice of alchemy expands. Alchemy as a discipline is about dreaming the impossible, and then finding a way to make it happen. It is about questioning restrictions, and then questioning those questions. To discuss the ethics of alchemical progress would be the theme of an entirely new conference, but a part of the alchemical process is to_ question the world around us _._ _To question the world around us, and weigh it against right and wrong, and then set about finding a way to change it. We have boundaries that keep us safe - our arrays - but even these boundaries are flexible. In the end, it is only the boundaries that we set for ourselves - those lines that we draw in the sand, to say,_ this far, but no further _\- that will restrict us_. _And we have to set these lines for ourselves, because, as proven by the actions demanded of alchemists on the battlefield by the Amestrian military in the last few years, it certainly won’t be the government that draws the line for us. Remember our creed:_ Be thou for the people.

\- excerpt from “Upon the Necessity of Alchemical Arrays,” presented by Liselotte de Prie on 14 May 1913, as part of the 18th Annual International Alchemical Conference

* * *

Liselotte walked along the river bank in the South Bank, the First Insel and the Stadtkrone complex containing the Amestrian Institute of Alchemy on her left, and the Cybele Gardens on her right. Although it was the middle of the work day, there were plenty of people out and about. The State Alchemist practical examinations were being held at the parade grounds today, and many people regarded it as a public holiday. Growing up in Central, her school had been given a half day so the children could watch the aspiring alchemists display their talents. If they were lucky, some of the dashing battle alchemists would choose single combat for their recertification exam, and then they’d get a _real_ display.

Now that she was older, Liselotte wondered if the spectacle shouldn’t be cut from the State Alchemist exams. She could see why the führer encouraged it – what child _wasn’t_ going to try to learn flame alchemy and join the military, after seeing the pyrotechnic displays Roy could snap up – but it was irresponsible. People needed to know that alchemy was _dangerous_ , not just something for their enjoyment. Newspaper serials like _The People’s Alchemist_ latched onto the flash and sparkle of alchemy without showing the hard work of it.

She supposed that less people would be interested in a serial that mainly consisted of long montages of increasingly frustrated research, culminating in the hero setting off an array (that might not even work properly!) in a carefully controlled room.

The last day of the International Alchemical Conference had been taken over by the State Alchemist examinations – most of the international alchemists left last night or this morning, because they weren’t allowed to watch the exams “in case of international espionage” – so Liselotte was pursuing her own interests. She had initially planned to leave this afternoon, but Roy and the Elric brothers had effectively derailed those plans.

It wasn’t all bad. There were some bookshops in Central that had extended alchemy sections, which might carry books that her usual shops in East City didn’t have. If there was one thing she regretted about turning in her State Alchemist commission, it was the loss of the use of First National Library. She’d quite taken it for granted while she had access to it, and now that she didn’t she had to scrounge for her own copies of the rare books. Every shop with an alchemy section had a copy of Paracelsus; much fewer carried Madame Curie’s _Isolating Elements_.

Liselotte picked up a copy of the _Amestris Post_ at a newspaper stand, the paper joining Madame Curie’s book in her bag, and found a street café to enjoy a light lunch in. The afternoon stretched long and empty in front of her; her friends in Central were all occupied today, and her travel plans obviously delayed until next week. She read the paper over her lunch: the Antiestablishment Movement was acting up again in the South Area (but the military was handling it), the Aerugonians were pushing closer to Fostet (but the military was handling it), and a Drachman smuggling ring was discovered in the North Area (but the military was handling it). As she read about how capable the Amestrian military apparently was, she entertained vague ideas of settling in one of the public parks for the afternoon and starting Madame Curie’s book.

However, as she was waiting for her a cup of coffee, a man strode up to her table and took the seat opposite her. He was a tall, broad man despite his age, his blond hair peppered with white, and his eyes were the same green as Liselotte’s. He wore the blue uniform of the Amestrian military, complete with one of those ridiculous skirts that clipped on over the pants. The stars at his shoulder marked the rank of a major general, and various medals pinned to the left breast of his jacket let everyone know how highly the führer valued his military service.

“You never responded to the letter I sent you two weeks ago,” MG Horace de Prie said to his daughter with exasperation. “I assume you must have been very busy with preparations for the conference.”

Liselotte clenched her jaw, and glanced down at the newspaper spread over her table. To buy herself some time, she gathered the pages, folding them up decorously before tucking them into her bag. She wasn’t about to tell her father that she had burned that letter once she saw who it was from. For some reason, he preferred to maintain the fantasy that she still held a sort of filial devotion towards him.

“Preparations for the conference always take more time than I anticipate,” Liselotte said neutrally once she couldn’t stall with the newspaper any longer. “Good day, general. What business brings you here today?”

General de Prie regarded her with some annoyance, brow furrowing a bit. Perhaps her choice of title for him was too formal, but did he really expect her to call him _Father_ after everything he’d done?

Finally, he asked, “Did you hear that another State Alchemist was found dead this morning?”

Liselotte looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. She _knew_ it was impossible, Roy had spent the night in her room, but what if… “Who was it?”

“The Silver Alchemist,” General de Prie replied. “Another war hero from the Ishvalan campaign.”

She’d known it couldn’t be Roy, but she still felt a surge of relief at her father’s words. Liselotte unclenched her hands, flexing out her fingers, and looked up again. “My condolences go to his family.” If he had any; Liselotte had never spoken with Giulio Comanche long enough to find out.

“Hmm.”

Liselotte tapped an index finger against her thigh, wishing that her father would just get to the point.

“Your panel discussion on Wednesday was much less incendiary than your lecture last year,” General de Prie observed.

Liselotte stopped herself from rolling her eyes by looking across the street at the Rheos River. She’d started disposing of her father’s letters to her before opening them around this time last year, after he’d called her a disgrace and a traitor to Amestris when she ended her paper on alchemical arrays with the statement that the government was using its alchemists immorally. _Be Thou for the People_ had been one of the tenets of Philosophism and the traditional study of alchemy since the 18 th century, but it was one that most people tended to forget in this age of alchemical spectacle.

“The only thing that was meant to be _incendiary_ about my lecture last year was my suggestion that transmutation circles might not even be necessary in the future,” Liselotte said, trying and failing to keep the bite out of her voice. She turned her head to meet her father’s gaze squarely. “In _my_ circles, that _was_ what was incendiary. The organizers just thought I’d be less controversial in a panel discussion this year.”

As if that would stop her. At least organizing her panel discussion meant she could pull in researchers from Maslonia and Themis that otherwise wouldn’t have been allowed to enter the country. After all, what was the count of comparing alchemical mythology cross-culturally when all the panelists were Amestrians? She would have asked Adrienne to join the panel to represent the Estvarat, but her partner hated speaking in public, for obvious reasons. Liselotte would hate public speaking as well if she needed a translator just to have a conversation with most people.

Her father’s hands clenched where they rested on the table in front of him, but before he could reply, the waitress finally arrived with Liselotte’s coffee.

It was a much-needed distraction, releasing a bit of the tension that had built up at the table. Liselotte cradled the warm mug, raising it to her nose and breathing in the scent. She closed her eyes and exhaled softly, trying to relax the hard line of her shoulders and neck before she got a tension headache. After taking a too-hot sip, she sighed and set the mug down again and opened her eyes. She looked at her father again, and asked, “What was so important that you needed to find me in person?”

Neither of them mentioned that the last time they’d been within five feet of each other, it had been exactly five years ago, after a military tribunal decided that her State-funded research into alchemical amplification was classified information, and that she would be jailed if she continued to pursue it as a civilian. Liselotte still wasn’t sure why her father had been there – he was the head of national intelligence, and state alchemists were the purview of LTG Enfield and General Gardner of State Affairs – but it had ended with raised voices on both parts.

General de Prie folded his hands on the table. “I think it is time that you rejoin the military. I understand your desire for independence, but with upcoming events, it is important to show support and solidarity for the administration.”

Liselotte couldn’t do more than blink stupidly at her father for a few moments. Then: “I’m sorry, _what?_ ”

“Liselotte, please,” her father said sternly. “Your social circle would not change much – I know you are still friends with the Flame Alchemist – and you could pick up your old research interests again. Surely you can see reason.”

See reason?

_See reason?_

Liselotte’s brain froze, heat rising in her cheeks. She could barely breathe, she was so furious. She hadn’t even been this furious last night while talking with Roy. Well, at least with Roy, she knew he regretted murdering civilians in Daliha at the government’s orders. She didn’t think her father had ever regretted one of his murderous actions in his life.

“I have _already_ , as you call it, _seen reason_ ,” Liselotte bit out. Each word had to be hauled out of the depths of her rage, control over her anger as tenuous, apparently, as her father’s grip on reality. “I will not serve a _murderous dictator_ , as our führer has shown himself to be –” She paused, gritting her teeth, taking a quick breath. “Not for _anything_. Good _day_ , general.”

She stood up, drained her coffee in a few swallows, and then went to settle her bill inside the café. When she emerged, her father was gone, thankfully. It was only half an hour later, once she had calmed down enough to sit down in a park with her book that she remembered exactly what General de Prie had said, and thought:

 _Exactly_ what _“upcoming events”?_

* * *

“Saw nothin’, know nothin’, and good _day_.”

Another door slammed in 1LT Eliza Cooke’s face, and she sighed. That was the fifth door slammed today, and just one of a _very_ many chilly receptions she’d received as she asked around about the Silver Alchemist’s death last night. The people in the Klein Insel and the bordering banks had no love for the military, and made no effort to hide that fact when faced with military blues.

It was times like this when she regretted ever signing up for this job.

Most of the time, she liked her work. Her team was easy enough to get along with, and LTC Hughes asked and expected a lot but wasn’t unkind about it. He had a cute kid, and didn’t mind showing pictures of her to Eliza when she was missing her nieces and nephews back home. Criminal investigation was, well, it was usually a lot more paperwork and legwork than exciting chases, which was fine with her. Most of the time.

Eliza leaned against the stone wall next to the Spinner’s Bridge, one of the three major bridges from the Rhone bank to the Fifth Insel. They’d been there for centuries, and houses and shops crowded the sides of them, leaving enough space in the middle for only one carriage to ride from island to bank, or vise versa. Not that many people rich enough to ride in carriages or automobiles would want to use these bridges; there were other, safer routes to get from bank to bank that _didn’t_ involve passing through the crime-ridden Fifth and Sixth Insels.

At least her military uniform bought some measure of protection. Everyone knew that, while the civilian police weren’t allowed to carry firearms on their rounds, military officers were always armed. Eliza had never actually _shot_ anyone, but she carried her handgun and knew how to use it, the same as any soldier.

It also helped that there were other officers within shouting distance – Hughes had his entire team chasing down the site where the Silver Alchemist was killed. After the morgue performed their autopsy, they’d determined that he’d been killed around 22:00 last night, and his body had entered the water not long after. It hadn’t helped to limit the search area, but the new information did help with asking questions. People around here tended to be more helpful when they knew you didn’t care about what illegal thing they were doing at midnight, just whether or not they’d heard a fight two hours earlier.

Not that they were much help at all, Eliza felt. She hoped the other members of the team were having better luck.

Eliza pushed off the wall, and continued her search along the river. She knocked on several more doors, got a handful of blank stares, a few looks of mixed curiosity and suspicion, and one more door slammed in her face. This time, they didn’t even _bother_ to hear what she had to say before slamming it.

She bit the inside of her cheek and looked down, hands on her hips, trying to get her frustration under control. She could bang on the door again, and use the weight of the law to _make_ them talk to her, but she’d turn grey before they’d cooperate with or show respect for her. Some officers would do it – LTC Frank Archer encouraged his subordinates to throw their weight around with civilians, she’d heard – but Hughes always seemed annoyed when he heard those stories. Then again, he was charming enough that maybe _he_ didn’t need the weight of the military behind him to get people to even get past the _first question_ …

A commotion from further down the street pulled her attention, and Eliza stepped back from the doorstep, turning to see what happened. Some forty feet down the street, a cart had gotten caught – in a pot hole, Eliza thought. There was some shouting and grumbling as several people tried to get the cart back on even ground, with someone calming the horse hitched to the cart, and pedestrians swerving around as an automobile queued up behind the scene, honking its horn.

Well, if she put off knocking on more doors to help with that, Hughes couldn’t fault her, right? She’d be living up to the goal of the Amestrian military, to help the people. Or something. She’d go right back to interviews afterwards.

Eliza jogged to the commotion and offered her assistance.

She got suspicious looks in return, but they accepted her help in levering the cart out of the pot hole. As soon as they’d done it and the cart had turned off the riverside road and onto the bridge over to the Fifth Insel, the automobile roared past in a cloud of exhaust, almost clipping Eliza’s elbow before she dodged to the side.

“Let _their_ tire find a pot hole next,” Eliza muttered, glaring after the auto.

“Would serve them right,” a middle-aged man said next to her. He’d helped to lever the cart’s wheel out of the hole, bringing out a strange metal weight to serve as a fulcrum for their lever. Actually, now that Eliza was paying attention, the weight kind of looked like the round head of a morning star…

Eliza bent down and examined the morning star. It shone enough to be new steel, but some of the spikes were crumbling off, like their tips had been disintegrated. “That’s strange,” she muttered, reaching out to feel the edges carefully. There were also jagged marks, like geometrical hairline fractures, at different spots on the surface: the tell-tale marks of a hurried transmutation.

“Wait, sir!” Eliza called after the man, jumping up to follow him to a shop door down the road. “Where did you find this?”

He stopped in his doorway, and gave her – or rather, her uniform – a once-over, before saying, “Where else? In the street here. There were more scattered around this morning, and chains to boot. The boys took the chains, of course, and the other weights.” He paused. “Was a right commotion ‘round here last night. Flashes of light, and shouts.” He paused again. “Might’ve been your alchemist’s duel.”

_What?_

“You mean you saw the Silver Alchemist’s death?” Eliza asked, hurriedly taking out her notebook and pen. Now that she was looking for it, the pot hole looked less like a natural pot hole and more like the remains of an object after an array gouged out the necessary source material for a transmutation, and there were other dips in the paving stones that bore the marks of transmutations, all recent enough to be from the previous night. _This was the crime scene!_

The man shrugged. “Don’t know if it was him or not, we stay ‘way from that all here. _Beware the alchemist’s duel_ , and all.”

Eliza pushed down an impatient sigh at the Anti-Alchemist sentiment, and asked, “But you saw them? They two combatants?”

The man’s lips thinned, and his shoulders drew up, but then a teenage girl stuck her head out the door and said, “Short, fat, white man inna hat, with a huge handlebar mustache. He’s the one with the chains. Then a tall, muscled man with dark skin and white hair. Both musta had tattoos, ‘cause neither a them drew their circles.”

The man hushed the teenage girl, but Eliza had already written down everything she said. Eliza stepped closer to the door, smiling in a way that she hoped was friendly and _didn’t_ betray just how desperate she’d been for this testimony. “Now,” she said, “Could I get your name? For the official record.”

* * *

_Beware the alchemist’s duel, and the aftermath. The source material for their transmutations may be anything, from the ground under your feet, to the breath in your lungs. In the heat of battle, the careless alchemist will do nothing for your life and everything for their own._

_Tread lightly when you find evidence of the alchemist’s duel: the jagged edges of sourced material, the strewn remains of a once-ordered place. The combatants might still lurk, ready to strike._

\- excerpt from _The Physician’s Almanac_ , a book anonymously published in 1732 but now attributed to the politician Julian Verek, one of the leading voices behind the short-lived Anti-Alchemist Movement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing for the glossary this chapter, I don't think - let me know if y'all have any questions.  
> \--  
> Cenz are, according to the wiki, an analogue for yen; the West City gourmet restaurants that serve food at 11,000 cenz a plate are serving them at just under $100 a plate. From how much it costs to make a pay phone call in canon, I assumed that there was no attempt at calculating for inflation between an AU 1914 and 21st century prices. XD
> 
> Upon fluorite, bastnäsite, and fluorescence: Fluorite was the mineral that George Gabriel Stokes named the phenomenon of fluorescence after in 1852! Some fluorite emits blue light in the visible spectrum, and the blue light has been attributed to the presence of divalent europium in the crystal. Europium was isolated in 1901; it’s associated with rare earth elements, and can be found in the mineral bastnäsite in mineable quantities. All of this information was taken from Wikipedia, so if I’ve completely messed something up, then we can say that the alchemy takes care of it.
> 
> Yes, I did namedrop Marie Curie; she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911.

**Author's Note:**

> GLOSSARY OF ESTVAR TERMS:  
>  _Arcanumat_ : plural for Arcanum, which is both the Estvar branch of alchemy and their term for a person who practices it.
> 
>  _Estvar_ : gender-neutral noun and adjective (like ‘American’) for a person of the ethnoreligious group of people that inhabits a geographic area including the land Amestrians refer to as Ishval, whose defining physical traits are red eyes, white hair, and brown skin. (And yes, a tribute to mfelixandy's fic _Estvarya_ , although that word means something far different in that fic than it does in this one.)
> 
>  _Estvarat_ : plural of Estvar. Also refers to the language spoken by the people Amestrians call Ishvalan.
> 
>  _Ishvala the Warrior_ : one of three aspects of the One in All worshiped by Estvarat. Patron of protection, war, and childbirth.
> 
>  _Kanah_ : temple, where Estvarat go to pray, and where the yelimat live.
> 
>  _Kishneu the Maker_ : one of three aspects of the One in All worshiped by the Estvarat. Patron of Arcanum, the arts, and diplomacy.
> 
>  _Kulasal_ : the geographic area held by the Estvarat, consisting of the area the Amestrians call Ishval (consisting of Kanda, Daliha, and Gunja) as well as the other six Estvar cities (Suta, Lashana, Baida, Melisda, Veriha, and Yahva).
> 
>  _Shykish_ : the Estvar term for a person who has willingly given up their name and removed themselves from the One’s sight until they retake a name or die.
> 
>  _Yelimat_ : the plural of yelim, which is an Estvar warrior priest.
> 
> \--
> 
> Some dialogue taken from episode 15 of FMA:B in the fight with the Silver Alchemist.


End file.
